CNA – Alphabet’s Google has agreed to pay USD90 million to settle a legal fight with app developers over the money they earned creating apps for Android smartphones and for enticing users to make in-app purchases, according to a court filing.
The app developers, in a lawsuit filed in federal court in San Francisco, had accused Google of using agreements with smartphone makers, technical barriers and revenue sharing agreements to effectively close the app ecosystem and shunt most payments through its Google Play billing system with a default service fee of 30 per cent.
As part of the proposed settlement, Google said in a blog post it would put USD90 million in a fund to support app developers who made USD2 million or less in annual revenue from 2016-2021.
“A vast majority of United States (US) developers who earned revenue through Google Play will be eligible to receive money from this fund, if they choose,” Google said in the blog post.
Google said it would also continue to charge a 15-per -cent commission to developers who make USD1 million or less annually from the Google Play Store. It started doing this in 2021.
